even all the stars are blind

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.”

Gabriel García Márquez

I never bothered with astrology. I really didn’t care. Until fairly recently, and now it’s something that gives me some peace. I don’t understand how it works, and I’m not sure my intellectual curiosity for matters of the stars runs so deep. But I believe in it, because of how it’s persisted through time, and maybe more. I like astrology. Something about it offers possibilities for every day and season, it gives me hope. I like imagining my life from some distant perspective. I never wanted to go to outer space as a kid, when you learn about astronauts, because I would get so motion sick in the car, and apparently hurtling yourself through the atmosphere can make you pretty nauseous too.

I don’t know, there’s a whole category of stuff, like what people do in astronaut school, that seems like a big part of life when you’re a kid but then you realize just doesn’t come up that often in life.

But I understand through astrology maybe, the desire of astronauts to see the world as a little blueberry, if only for a moment. To remind yourself your soul can be separated from all the stuff, can you imagine how it feels know your house, your car, your partner, your clothes are all somewhere on that little blueberry? And that you can be separated from it all so thoroughly, you might just end up as stardust?

I like that astrology asks you to take that kind of heavenly view. I don’t know if it’s working out for me, on the one hand I have so much belief, that even if things are not so unequivocally bitching as I imagined them to be in each season, I tell myself the seeds are there. Or maybe my life is so abundant and I focus on the wrong things.

My mind plays tricks on me. Things that make me happy and are good omens can in two or three turns make me frightened. To Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s point, perhaps the substance is secondary, but the quality of feeling that you bring to all the stuff.

london

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guess what was at the other side of the hill'.

Duke of Wellington

October 3, 2021 marked the London Marathon 2020 for me, the 10th marathon of my life (8 x 42km races, one 60k ultramarathon, and one Comrades marathon of 89km).

The best thing about running my first marathon, was the huge surprise that I could, in fact, physically run for 26.2 miles. I was truly finding out what was on the other side of the hill.

You might think by the 10th marathon, the novelty would have worn off, but really I felt just as elated to know, that despite injuries, MRIs, and general gimpiness that had kept me from the starting line since 2017, I was not over the hill yet!

I was generally undertrained for the marathon. I had started with early morning runs in 2019, a 15 milers on the Boston course in February 2020, and then when the race was postponed with the rest of the world in May 2020, I churned out many dutiful neighborhood runs on roads which were empty of cars! The race was pushed off further and further, and my running was replaces with a tennis obsession and as much skiing as I could manage!

In April 2021, I bought the running shoes and the shorts I would run in and made some 5 miles jogs in mountain altitude that left my legs sore, and not quite ready to maintain a consistent schedule. I felt pretty confident picking my way along an up and down trail in Liguria in May, but the summer holidays got away from me, and only in the late days of August did I make some jogs around the park and really check in with myself - 26.2 miles? On October 3rd?

Weirdly enough, although my 4 mile runs at an 11 minute pace weren’t so inspiring, I did feel enough of a euphoria, a connection to my former self, that I could actually see running another full marathon in London. I have stocked this blog with little one-liners like “the hardest part is getting to the starting line”, “the hardest part is getting past the whitewater” to the point, I actually believe all that stuff! And I rationalized that, with the coveted entry to the London Marathon secured, over £1,200 raised for Victa UK, entry fees paid, I was too close to the finish line to give up by not starting the race!

So, with the energy that can only be given by God, when you want to get things done, I sorted through all the murky Co-Vid 19 regulations and testing and flights I would need to sort to get to London on October 3 in about 1 hour with a pencil and a sheet of copy paper, and I packed my bags.

I arrived in London on October 1st, to Gatwick Airport, a bit exhausted because I had stayed out before an early-morning flight to watch the new James Bond movie.

I found the energy only God can give when you don’t want to pay £100 for a taxi to the hotel, and bought an Oyster card to my accommodation, just by the Expo. I made my first mission to get my running bib, and felt so removed from the marathon culture - I thought I prepared by wearing a Burberry jacket I thrifted to this occasion - the look of the moment was clearly bright and stretchy with chunky running trainers. So you could tell on the Underground who was also in town for the marathon and strike up nervous conversation. I don’t think people believed me and i hardly believed myself the day before.

I also didn’t think through all my options for the weather, so I ended up going to a charity shop and finding this UBS-SBC banking artifact sweater, which was so bright and lovely, I wore it to the start and couldn’t bear to toss it at any point in the course.

Although finally, making my way to the subway, I felt like I belonged in the city as a runner, starting sticking together with the Gatorade-gulping others and their numbers, I couldn’t hold back tears through the nervous chit chat. I felt alone and not fully confident, I was just going through the motions of a cool habit I set in motion 5 years ago.

The start was grassy, chilly, and took forever. I was grateful for the first inches of pavement, but I forgot how long a marathon was. When the first mile ticks by, you feel happy your legs are fresh and it’s so easy, but also full of trepidation because it’s too early to really know what you’re doing.

I just ran as modestly as I could, another lady even commented on it when she jogged past me. But I’m really not embarrassed to run slowly in the slightest, especially early on, because even if in the past 12 months my training lacked, over years of running marathons starting cautiously has never let me down. I knew my mission was simply to finish, get myself home, and to recover well.

I looked for little boosts around the course, like a trumpet player, a great DJ at mile 5, and kids passing out candy- Jelly Babies! Which I knew from working in Finance for years, and how it sometimes coincided with London, were a UK specialty.

Some people like to stick to the line when running a marathon to avoid running across the course in what can amount to miles of extra effort. I need to sometimes oscillate between sides of the crowds for high fives or confections, just because each little interaction helped me make it to the next mile.

Just before the halfway point, is Tower Bridge, which was the biggest treat on the course. The view was breathtaking, of the London Eye and Thames, and the sky was lovely and clear at this time! I started running faster. Just after the bridge, you can see all the faster runners lapping you on the out and back, so I also started giving the Mile 21 crew high fives across the barrier for fun. My legs felt the absolute best at this point.

Then you start to get more on the outskirts of the city, I took some walking steps in the tunnels where I wasn’t letting down anyone on the sidelines, and I really felt like my running stride was getting so cramped up, I was covering the same ground with some walking steps and stretching out my legs.

At the 20 mile mark, it started pouring rain! And I started thinking about how to channel 2018 Des Linden at the Boston Marathon.

But one nice thing is that even though the absolutely ominous skies and intensity of the rain made it seem like it would last the rest of the race, it cleared up by Mile 21 to sunny, late afternoon skies.

The twists and turns to get to the finish at Buckingham Palace and the big signs with 4 KM LEFT kind of made me think the last leg of the race was shorter than it was. The finish line, lined with British Flags, wasn’t visible until you were right on top of it.

But I made a big effort because the crowd was so encouraging- “It’s a marathon, not a walk-a-thon!” one kind gent with a pint heckled me as a took a walk step - and because I knew, if at least kept running, I could stop at the finish. I know from marathons past you can’t simply just stop walking for the rest of the day.

And I finished, after more than 5 hours!

In lieu of the greatest feeling in the world, where a volunteer places a heavy medal around your neck, the medals were given in the plastic kit bags with your number and any personal items at the end of the race. I still wore mine.

I cried finding a taxi, and missed my flight home that night - too slow.

But I did something that I had set out to do, and it felt good, and it got me to the most important question- what is next?

rivers

“A lot of times I do things as an impulse and find out my inspirations afterward… It can take me years to find out what I was actually trying to do. — Lykke Li

walking, walking, walking. as I listen to my feet in heavy sandals, turning the corner, I try to pick out sounds as far as I can in the distance. the vague sounds from the stereo of a Jeep Wrangler waiting at a traffic light 1000 yards away. The engine of a landscaping truck struggling up around the first little hill of Maple Avenue. The filtration system of an otherwise hidden swimming pool. A few birds that fly overhead for a second. I pick out as many sounds as I can and imagine a big circle around myself, from my ears to the furthest thing they detect. how funny that my attention can catch sound of the airplane, 40,000 feet or so above, but most of the time, except when I play this little game, I only hear the thoughts between my two ears.

listen, listen listen.

you’ll have to try this out for yourself. It really makes things fun and you will realize how lopsided your muscles for looking and thinking might have developed relative to listening. it’s also fun to see how even on a simple walk, you can bring things from the edge of what you can perceive in full detail. there’s a supernatural feeling when you get better and better at identifying the sounds around you.

and so it’s a fun game. when you start to think again, you can keep listening, for the things on the very edge of what you know.

I have been doing this my entire life, choosing to reroute years of my life to learn something, because I heard about it in casual conversation or read it in a book, because it popped up in my email inbox or instagram feed or general idle chatter. I have often felt awkward about explaining myself; it’s always a funny story about why decided to take a left-hand turn when the road was merging right, but I think it comes down to listening.

one of my favorite, happy-to-be-alive, lock-in-the-heart-vault forever memories is of the montreux jazz festival; not because I saw any of the events in any of their fullness.; not because I saw the mythical wizzened Iggy Pop, a headliner that year, lose his tooth mid-set and continue the rock’n’roll; not because of any instrument or person there; but because, I didn’t really know that the festival was going, I was simply walking, walking, walking like I had been for too many days at that point, and enjoy following the bend of the very beautiful lac leman, all misty mountains, ducklings and yellow flowers, and there was about a minute where I heard some wonderful music traveling across the water into this scene, before descending on the crowds and carts of the festival, and this was perfect.

maybe listening is the opposite of ‘playing chess with life’. it’s the only way I know to live happily almost guaranteed.

when you listen closely, you can really learn important things you want to know, faster than you can than with other kinds of effort. did you know andre agassi learned how to consistently beat boris becker only because he watched back videos of his first three losses so closely, he could see that becker contorted his face each time to where he was serving the ball? it’s slight break in the auditory metaphor, but I just learned this, and I think it’s such a cool example of how if you look or listen closely enough, the answer can be right in front of you.

but even outside of finding the answers, or being led to the most beautiful destination, listening just makes for an enjoyable walk. it’s thrilling to hear, sense, predict, feel things before you can see them. it gives direction and the feeling to move.

gelato

“I always knew I was a star and now, the rest of the world seems to agree with me.”

freddie mercury

today I walked to bible street. in a pair of flip flops, I think from the rockaway beach days. they’re not quite the right size. because everyone has the same cute brown leather flip flops called rainbows, and if you stay surfing until dusk, or whatever, or even just hang out for a while, you tend to kind of keep floating afterwards. to the point where you can easily stick your feet in anyone’s flip flops, walk home, and not even realize to the next day. when I walk I tend to think about how all these little past moments made up the now moment.

anyway, being human, I only decided to go for a nice long walk because I wanted a gelato, and I couldn’t bear to use my car to get there. even though the sun was setting pink, and I live on a road with no sidewalk. I wanted to walk to the gelato more than I wanted ice + cream. and of course, there are many little past moments along the Via Francigena which made up the today moment. gelato is always a good motivation to walk.

and as I was walking some good things happened.

my feeling of well being improved a lot. I made an important life decision. some strangers offered me a ride! I broke a tiny sweat. I found a little path to skateboard. I thought about teleporting, and growing up, and cloning yourself. How sometimes life feels like the airplane to where you’re going, and sometimes it feels like the place. The tickets I’m taking. How the press is always late, how Roger Federer is the one of the best tennis players of all time, but worth more than that through STYLE. (Kanye said, “I’m worth 5 billion dollars, and more than though CHRIST”). About a little red dress I finally found in this wild word, with a fan print and ruffle hem that made me feel so pretty with all muscle on top of my thighs when I ran my fifth marathon of 2017 in Buenos Aires . About how I look back on my life like a movie, so much so that I enjoy collecting the costumes. Like somebody else’s flip flops, you never know where a great dress will take you.

but anyway, the other thing I thought about was this phrase, I heard someone say about awareness. something to the effect of “your awareness is literally paving the ground underneath your feet with each step you take”. whatever that means. but you know, as someone who grew up in Sunday school with a very clear picture in their head of the disciples walking on water through a storm and sinking when they doubted, it just made sense.

and I thought about the Via Francigena, how a top comment is basically why did it work out cool? and is there some special quality or formula to it, because it seems like everyone, myself included, wants more of that!

and you know, just as much as the walking, as the mountains (at this point I pause to listen to the edm song “higher” by don diablo and remember the special energy of passing through the Swiss alps to the Aosta Valley), as the churches, I think to write the experience day by day was to literally script the journey and my life in an intentional way.

and you know, I can do that everyday, because really, adventure is just a matter of stepping outside. everyday you are on planet earth is like this magical, finite time, this journey, that, you don’t even need a PBS special with Neil Tyson Degrasse about meteorites to know isn’t going to last forever.

so I want to live like that, and write like that.

the gelato was delicious.

tennis courts

What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.

Niels Bohr

So here it is, a return to writing. This space has always been a place to work out ideas along broad but distinct themes. Running marathons, seeing the world, and generally, exploring reality in motion. Let’s say through mostly athletic vehicles + planes, trains, and automobiles. I have to say, for all the travels chronicled here, I have never truly lost a sense of wonder, or how absolutely wild it is, the speed and ease at which we have been able to cross physical distance over the commercial airline network. Not that the whole world can be reached by airport, for sure there are some places that you have to walk to. But it was always feeling a a little science fiction to fit into an economy seat, watch “A Star is Born” a few times, and within hours feel the humidity of Rio de Janeiro or the cold of New York on a noisey runway.

At least since Bali, for me, it was always kind of underscored in my mind with an appreciation of how delicate the whole system can be to weather, politics, timing, force of will. All of which is to say, I’m not all that frustrated by the current global travel ban. I think the world has been wide open in ways we can now kind of appreciate the complexity of, I think it’s a nice time to explore, is travel an airplane or a state of mind?

I think it’s a nice time to play some tennis, which is just about the most fun thing you can do these days. And it’s so fun to find a new tennis court. It’s something square and instantly recognizable and common, but not soo common.

“I’m never going to take TJ Maxx or Home Goods or any of those stores for granted again” I heard a radio commentator buzz, it wasn’t even an advertisement. A curious thing to miss the most of all the ways life has changed, but you know, those stores are really tied to the brick and mortar, because they’re not just a way to get stuff, they’re designed as this whole treasure hunt experience.

And that’s kind of how I feel about tennis courts. I am surprised how naturally certain vocabulary moves into tennis. If I can work around the rain, or a busy public court, or even the act of rolling water off after a thunderstorm and eeking out a few rallies, I describe it as, another day of not being skunked. Skunked, being, like, when you can’t surf, usually because there are no waves.

So in that way, tennis is kind of this treasure hunt, surf around substitute for being home in the time of Cholera.

And it has been really fun.

video post: solo walking the Francigena

Well, all that time on Zoom has made vloggers out of all of us. At the request of the Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome, I sat down to talk about walking the Francigena solo, and this is the result! Let me know if you have other questions I can answer via video! I had too much fun making this clip!

ELEPHANTS IN THE ALPS

just before lausanne on the Via Francigena, a full day’s walk from donkeys and highways of orbe, on the french border, there is some kind of nunnery where you can stay on a cot behind the sunday school hall for five swiss francs. which is like very satisfying big half-dollar looking coins. I was looking for said nunnery in the rain, when I went into a very unexciting pub by a bus stop to ask to use the telephone. it wasn’t of much consequence, except for two things; it did help me find the little cot that I slept in that night, and what emerged from a franglais-conversation the world might call “broken” was a life-shattering new piece of information for me.

HANNIBAL CROSSED THE ALPS WITH ELEPHANTS

believe me, my knowledge of the punic wars has rusted over the past 2,000 years, and I don’t really like writing the name Hannibal because its’s confusing in the modern imagination BUT is there a better three-word history than

ELEPHANTS IN THE ALPS

a mere google image search of pen and ink drawings of the historic event, honestly gives me chills. even the tiny pixelated version gives me full on Washington-crossing-the-Delaware vibes, it might be to much before going to sleep.

so super happily, I also discovered this light 1950s version too, where English university students got permission to take a rowdy elephant from the Turin Zoo through the Alps one summer in honor of the ancient history.

Obviously, this plan could be updated for 2020 in ways that are more compassionate to the elephant. But also, WHAT!

from John Hoyte-

Whatever the reason, the question stuck in my head even though, laughingly, I recounted all the reasons why it would be impossible: No money. No elephant. No experience. No reason to justify it. No possibility. No way! However I could not get to sleep that night and began to think outside the box and put aside the impossibilities. I let myself imagine the possibilities! Suppose I was actually able to get an elephant. What then? 

—-

maybe it’s just another way of saying, do NOT dream too small!

http://johnhoyte.com/alpine-elephant

a meditation

Lods, France, July 2018 

I remembered a conversation I had years ago, with someone I would never meet again. He was a filmmaker type at the birthday celebration of someone I didn’t know at a packed restaurant downtown. All of his sister’s 17 closest friends and family, including me, were crammed around a round table. 

“There’s a meditation I practiced, where you put all of your focus on to a single step. You just walk through the woods, with all of your intention in each step you take. And that’s the whole practice” 

I was still in the habit of staggering towards lit taxicabs at all hours of the night in cute shoes that betrayed me. I didn’t give much thought to this information, but I nodded my head so that someone would keep talking to me at this party. 

Finally, the information seemed pertinent, here in the Juras. I was jamming closer and closer into the shoulder of a winding mountain road. There were cars and motorbikes. The pleasant kind of Sunday-driving road you might want to see in a Lexus ad. The sort of thing you imagine to drift off to sleep. But my vantage point read DANGER, from the sound of fast-moving cars, from the narrowing road, from the disappearing shoulder, and the short limit of what I could see in front of me. 

I had gotten here with an audacious sense of confidence. Hungry for experiences outside the abstractions of Wall Street (as traders in Midtown still call it), I found a nebulous kind of map called the Via Francigena. A way to walk to Rome from Canterbury, England. There were infinite unknowns, to be alone walking for three months, to discover four foreign nations, to stay healthy and fit for the physical challenge of walking and running 10 hours a day. But all things considered, I had made it, in one piece, from the jungles of Calais to the picturesque Juras bordering Switzerland.  

As the road spiraled up to Pontarlier indefinitely, with no place to walk between the winding cars and motorbikes and mountain edge, I climbed on top of the traffic barriers and stepped forward with precision.  

A distant radio played the Rolling Stones, “Look at that Stupid Girl”, I tuned it out and gave all my rich attention to the grips on the bottom of my trailing-running shoes. I didn’t know how much further I would have to go like this, but I had a sense of the distance I was leaving behind with each step.  

This was my meditation.  

-ii just flipped the switch

sometimes I can't decide whether I believe that we move fast
or time moves slow
but I like it, though

(victor vasquez)

________

things are happening in the micro lately, so this blog is about a microscopic practice. because I like to be current (-ish) i’m calling it “flipping the switch”, like the drake song that turned into a meme where j.lo and and alex rodriguez switched outfits in their super nice bathroom.

my kind of “flipping the switch” could also be called “instant revision” or maybe even what it means to “turn the beat around”

it’s basically the art of finding your power in the moments that disturb you, trigger you, upset you, challenge you, throat-punch you, or otherwise excite you.

it’s happened to me like, 3-4 times in the past week, so, what once thought of as “flashes” of clarity, I am now realizing is a practice.

basically step one is something “BAD” happens.

examples from my own life:

- seeing empty shelves and sold out signs in shops

-the time an airbnb was double booked and the strangers knock on the door in the middle of the night

-getting hit by a citibiker (lol), errant rockaway surfer

-missing an appointment because of an accident then the reschedule being cancelled

-someone goes off the handle and yells on the phone or in my face

-someone @’s me something I don’t like

-the delivery person fails to deliver before an event where timing matters

-people whispering

-getting denied at a the door of a party for showing up after a 10-mile run without going home first

-getting ditched on 2 hours of hungover plane sleep on a pier in Venice

-getting lost in Picardie with an (almost) dead phone

-having 1-2 friends in Barcelona, for both of whom, it becomes apparently midnight, are not making it to the club with you as planned

when I reflect on the past few weeks, I realize that ALL of these moments (some taken from the past year as well), that prick at my sense of well-being just a little bit more than the other millions of events that happen on any given day, also have become my favorite moments because embedded in each one is an opportunity to flip the switch, step into power and/or learn something about myself.

in each case, big to small, everything turned out cool, and it actually was more exciting to feel like I had great control over the outcomes, even when it wasn’t smooth sailing, then if things had worked out the normal way!

and it seems like it is a practice, because it’s basically the same process for turning each situation around-

an excerpt from my overdue library book, “stillness speaks” by eckhart tolle-

“start practicing "not naming" with small things. If you miss the plane, drop and break a cup, or slip and fall, can you refrain from naming the experience as bad and painful? can you immediately accept the "is-ness" of that moment? naming something as bad causes an emotional contraction within you. when you let it be, without naming it, an enormous power is suddenly available to you... when you are in a nonreactive relationship to experiences, what you would have called "bad' before often turns around, quickly, if not immediately, though the power of life itself".

basically, when one of these events pop up, I go out of my way to detach from my emotions (in some cases it’s easier than others) i go out of my way not to affirm them, not to react, if there are other people around me affirming the situation as bad or helpless, I sometimes cut them or off, or just completely tune it out. I don’t care to figure out who is to blame, how this could possibly happen, who is wrong, who is right, what is fair, I just look at what is in front of me and try to figure out the best possible outcome. and then what I can do right now to get there.

seriously, all of the events on my aforementioned list have become cool stories and happy memories because of this practice!

like when someone hits you with their surfboard or citibike, all you have to do is check in with yourself, are you physically hurt? if so, get help. if not, carry on, and if you just pause and say, no worries, you can keep surfing unperturbed! over time your reflexes and defensive driving skills will even improve by getting hit every once in a while. so it will happen less often without you having to yell at anyone to watch out for no reason and disturb the peace. you can carry on your own session unperturbed. and especially in the case of getting hit by a citibiker, you end up a legend for not even blinking!

if there’s no toilet paper on the shelves, there’s no reason to get upset, just affirm to yourself, we live in a world of abundant toilet paper, and I’m just one little person. ask yourself, what am I going to do now? then ask someone unpacking the boxes if there is any toilet paper? If it a grumpy manager who shakes their head and says, no, impossible, we haven’t seen toilet paper in these parts for years, just move on quickly, and remind yourself, we live in a world of abundant shops that could possibly have toilet paper with different supply chain schedules, and move on, undiscouraged until you find paper and it feels like striking gold for all your efforts.

everything is happening so slow right now, it’s the perfect time to put “trigger” situations in slow motion and practice flipping the switch.

you are always spiraling to the optimal solution!

hello-o-o you are looking so fine

“Everything that surrounds us becomes part of us, it seeps into us with every experience of the flesh and of life and, like the web of a great spider, binds us subtly to what is near” - Fernando Pessoa

——————————

After going from 0-50 miles a week in the past few weeks of running, yesterday I woke up to my rest-day reminder. A blip on the google calendar, which has the best integration between desktop and mobile, in my opinion!

What do on a rest day?

I found some very cool guided meditations, I played with all my pens and notebooks and planners, I went for a walk with a friend (masks on), had two coffees, read a book that turned into a nap, and rearranged my to-do list without moving anything from one side to the other. In the absence of a three monitor set up, I like to project my multi-tasking onto two opposite sides of a door with post-it notes. It’s a nicely modular system, and I don’t mind seeing all my goals cluttering the walls of the room I hang out in nearly 24/8.

These days, I am bound, not so subtly, to what is near. Life seems to have been simplified to its most basic integers. I find this really satisfying. I’ve even doubled-down on the isolation and find myself less involved trying to even approximate a normal social life ‘virtually’.

Honestly, I’m so ‘out-of-touch’ it didn't even necessarily realize this was a unique point of view worth exploring until yesterday.

Because I value socializing and relationships a lot. And yet, I feel leaning into the isolation piece of “self-isolating” is the best use of my energy.

Social life has become obviously stripped down and detached from the 3-D. With no place to go and get sneezed on, or feel your heart pounding in a room full of strangers more important than you, I find myself asking, what’s the point? And now that all the days blur into each other, there’s no great pressure to stay awake for 72 hours on a weekend to make every party, I can really attempt to answer that question.

When I reflect, I feel like, although it seems like only a few months ago, we were operating in the wide open world, where we could go, do, or meet anyone we wanted to, we were still subtly cocooned, moving slowly along a web of who we knew, what we thought possible, entrenched patterns of how our relationships play out with family and old friends.

Perhaps things were unfolding over a broader sets of places and events, parties and handshakes. But BELIEVE ME, wherever you are in the world, and whatever you’re doing - whether you are behind a shopping cart with a face-mask at your local grocery store, or on the back of an illegal mototaxi ferrying you through the biggest favela in Rio - it is all the same BYOB party. Your beliefs, thoughts, observations, experiences, attitude, values, body, money, backpack, teeth, hair, heart, soul, are always what’s coming with you on the plane, to the party, to the meeting. They are what puts you there in the first place.

So in that way, I really feel like, if you are someone living the situation where your normal life has grown quiet lately, the best thing you can do for your friendships, relationships, career, social life, traveling dreams, is to welcome the silence. Meditate, if you need to fill the new space of an empty calendar, fill it with good intention, purpose, happy dreams, deeper perspective. We are always shaping our own experiences as involuntarily as we breathe. Time to breathe means an amazing opportunity to start shaping your experiences with intention!

I hope you’ll make the most of it <3

PS- the title of this blog is a Lana Del Rey song/ tik tok audio that accidentally cemented to the back of brain but because I spend so much time alone, one thing I am really aware of is positive self-talk and the importance of affirmations so if you need one take what you need and say “hello-o-o you are looking so fine” in a Lana del Rey voice to yourself every time you pass a mirror or a patch of blooming daffodils.

andrews road

“only do what your heart tells you.” - princess diana

truthfully, a lot has prepared me for these times. the solitary life doesn’t feel like a struggle, especially because in my town it is still acceptable to run and walk on the streets, as long as you are still mindful about it. but beyond that, I spent a lot of quiet days in Petropolis, exactly a year ago, where the only show in town most days was the fera (outdoor farmers market), picking green basil leaves to turn into pesto, afternoon soap operas, and beers and sardines at night. I spent a lot of time with myself when walking across the French portion of the Via Francigena, talking to myself for hours at a time along the dizzyingly straight, sunny canal to Chalons-en-Champagne. And most recently, and palpably, in December, I moved to the edge of backcountry Greenwich, which complicated my social life based in NYC for. time, but now feels like an inspired choice.

beyond the details of my individual life, I think that for all creative and solution-oriented minds currently quarantined, the constraints of a new way of life have been inspiring. you get more blank slate time. every calendar gets an N-95 mask for its free time, where all kinds of obligations, travel time, recovery time and general busy-ness would normally move right in. you get time to yourself, with one catch, that you can’t “really go anywhere”. but like an episode of project runway or chop’t, or like, any endeavor in life, you have to have one weird challenge to make it interesting.

so let’s go. I started thinking of what the most beautiful days would look like for me. a morning run, a super tidy space, meditation in the morning, meditation before bed, healthy meals, time to exfoliate and self-tan and moisturize and listen to good music and positive you tubers while I’m at it. time to write, time to edit + film video clips, time to catch up on work projects, because everything lives on my laptop anyway, time to study and read, tiime to arrange cut flowers and light candles and call my mom, try that recipe and even make my own rosewater for it!

what if it told you that you can live your personal dreams and it’s the best thing you can really do for the general population at the moment to boot?

I realize there are mixed feelings about running during this period, but I want to write about my run because it was so beautiful.

I will add two notes about how I feel about running during this time-

1) I chose roads where I ran with cars but very, very, far from other people, crossing the road for other joggers

2) there is something extremely beneficial for one’s own mental, physical, and I believe even specific virus-fighting faculties to go for a run. it’s an affirmation of a healthy respiratory system and helps me think more clearly to make good decisions when changes in all areas of life demand decisions.

today I made a new decision to take a left instead of a right, and my imagination was the beneficiary.

of a hill where the daffodils had all come in

of the comedy of a brown hydrangea flowerhead rolling in the winds, the cinematic tumbleweed of a self-isolating town in picturesque New England

a beautiful house that left the old bones of a stable or garage standing between their driveway and backyard, creating the most aesthetic 3 picture frames

crossing paths with another jogger who, every experience of my life can lead me to correctly identify at a glance as a european ultra-runner

a tiny hidden sports practice field belonging to greenwich academy, which reminded me of an alternate reality I had since forgotten about, where I went to Miss Porter’s after freshman year

a big brown tree stump, evidence of where a great old tree stood, now lavishly surrounded by the most lovely little purple spring flowers

as I spend more and more waking time reflecting on life, and the imagination within each of us which creates and decides what it can be, my 5-mile run was such a meaningful practice! the beautiful things that have already passed through my eyes, perhaps, through peripheral vision as I drove to some anticipated destination, got a chance to download fully into my imagination.

where they have grown into this post and soon, tomorrow’s run.

the secret + the francigena

have you ever heard of the ‘law of attraction’?

I have been reading about it a lot lately, and it’s like finally! I have a working explanation of this feeling - the best feeling in the world, which is, to live life as a habitually lucky person.

probably the most popular book explaining the “law of attraction” is this book called the secret. it’s a simple book, with glossy pages that take about an hour to read, but something inside it is so true and useful! it also explains something that i feel like i have already experienced, especially in the via francigena blogs that are the main piece of this website!

the basic idea is this: that positive or negative beliefs bring positive or negative experiences into a person's life.

that’s it! once I started reading more and more about this idea, so many little threads came together, in my story, and other stories I love so much.

when I was walking the via francigena, my goals were so clear to me every day. make it from point A to point B. eat, sleep, stay healthy to continue. there was this kind of miracle that happened everyday too, that even though I was getting lost in another country where I didn’t speak the language or have really well-thought out plans of where I was going to sleep, and what I was going to eat, it literally always worked out by sunset. there were several times I got lost - in the Juras, in Tuscany, outside of Langres where I was challenged to walk more than 26 miles in a day!! but it always worked out, and usually in the most serendipitous of ways. and I just came to rely on things working out, without questioning it. and that became my reality.

I wrote everyday and boldly put it out for people to read. I committed, as almost just a stylistic choice, to be appreciative of everyday and find the positives. when I was hurting, I simply wrote OUT that part out of the story. I knew my story was not to get hurt and stop. I knew my story was to stay strong enough to walk all the way to Rome, so, whatever pain I had was kept at bay until then.

a lot of people say there is a kind of magic on the camino, or when you walking.

yes, you are so connected to nature, and it’s true, something about fresh air and exercise is super healthy for the mind and spirit. and something about the camino I think also connects with religious beliefs we have inherited, that when we are walking to Santiago or Rome we believe we are in a realm where miracles are possible for us in this life.

but this magic doesn’t have to be limited to walking the camino if you can carry the positive mindset you can have walking into every arena of life.

one of the little mantras I had while walking was, “there are a million ways it can work out for you, you only need to find one” - that was true for every challenge I faced, as well as the big-picture challenge of getting from Canterbury to Rome.

the secret is that this principle can be applied to getting anyplace you want to go.

tennis x surfing x life

my shoulders woke up all snap crackle and pop!

one of the cool things about pursuing lots of different sports is that of course that you get unique style and perspective from doing different things simultaneously.

I always start to understand new things in life, surfing and tennis. everything is one beautiful game.

tennis has really made me listen to myself. it’s a really interesting game, because when I started, I could feel myself recoil, stiffen up, wince and shout SORRY! every time I missed a shot. it’s good to be polite, but I know how I feel when I have that reflex, and I know that reinforcement isn’t it! So when I miss, I try to laugh at myself at least to relax, or think about what happened, and now I have a new thing that I say that I think really helps, CLOSER! As in, IT’S GETTING CLOSER! Maybe on one shot my backhand didn’t go over the net, but I was in the right place to hit it, I did hit it, it would have been in the court if it had gone over the net, and I did something good like use two hands and put power on it, which is, much closer than where I started! There are other hard shots I miss too, but if I was there, if I hit it at all, if I know WHY and WHAT happened after I hit the ball, I consider it getting CLOSER! so if I feel compelled to say anything I say that.

And I picture myself hitting the ball perfectly before I hit it! I train my eye with the overheads, I really like it, it reminds me of watching the planes on the beach as they land at JFK and I paddle out at Rockaway. There’s something weirdly thrilling about when they fall and you make contact with your racket. It feels kind of magic, an overhead is my best shot.

And I understand with every shot I am training my eye, the same way that one needs to train their eye to catch the best wave or be at the best section of the wave. there’s something about framing it this way that just frees up your mind to let it happen faster. it has nothing to do with YOU- so to speak, it’s a natural process of seeing distances that you are directing to develop and is developing perfectly with every ball in the net and wipe out. among other lessons about life.

oh yeah, I’m sure i’ve kind of thought this before, cause it seems to obvious, but maybe one of the best things you learn surfing is about the timing of life!

I think when I started surfing it radically changed the way I approached life. To learn how to surf, I had to learn how to have fun paddling out, waiting for waves, watching other people in the line up, going to he beach, taking the A train for two hours, waxing my board, scraping the wax off later, literally everything that goes into making a 10-second ride on a little wave happen. But I never really doubted that those 10 seconds were worth it.

LONDON MARATHON UPDATE

January 31, 2019

On April 26, in less than 3 months, I will be in London, to run one of the biggest marathons in the world! 

It’s cool to wake up everyday knowing this is the critical period where I have the opportunity to train and give myself fitness and strength to carry me on this special day. 

To shuffle out of the dark, flick on a light, pull two mismatched socks and a pair of thick runnings tights on. To walk down the driveway, iPhone flashlight turned on, one ear listening to some dancey electronic music for motivation, one ear listening out for coyotes and deer that apparently roam free in Greenwich.

I don’t know how fast I’m going anymore, but when I start to warm up inside my coat, and the music starts to sound really good, I feel like I’m doing it again. 

I like the tired feeling in my legs throughout the day and the simple calm I feel. I like being just a little lighter, a little hungrier, and a little more wide-eyed by lunch time.

I like that in a world of endless possibilities, running as a ritual that creates its own set of necessities and constraints. 

THANK YOU FOR DONATING TO MY LONDON MARATHON FUNDRAISER IN SUPPORT OF VICTA UK -

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SaraMorano

my new year’s resolution

smurfs! i have some shocking news 

a smurf? who could have possibly smurfed such a thing 

——

it’s my new years resolution! which is this: my only resolution is in 2020 i want to be more materialistic. 

if you read the essay i linked before, maybe you will understand what i mean. 

the more i think about this theme of being materialistic, the more i realize how much i really want to engage with the world around me.

because in a way, the “materialistic” mainstream lifestyle is not materialistic at all- to me, it means life mediated by a screen, our ideals, a head in the Apple Cloud, hung up on titles, labels, commas, followers, status, clout, calories, membership, future plans, et cetera, et cetera, and detached from simple pleasures like cooking, soft sweaters, the satisfaction of repairing broken things .... 

which is what i want to reclaim 

it’s like... “look... do you see the grain fields down there? i do not eat bread. the wheat fields have nothing to say to me. and that is sad” 

(which is a quote from the book the little prince, which weirdly the exact sentiment i had walking for miles outside of arras, FR - my diary- “i’m trying to develop more of an appreciation for wheat fields since were spending a lot of time together, all i see is something gwyneth paltrow wouldn’t eat)

 which is to say, i want to engage and be stoked with the real world around me - to borrow from christianity, i want the rocks to cry out to me... 

so on a very practical level this means this means that when light streams into my window at 6:00am, to feel grateful that it took 8 minutes and 20 seconds to get from the sun to my eyelids, instead of a loathing of the ritual of the train and the office, which ends up being a loathing of life.

it means feeling a little pleased with the speed and accuracy of what can be done on a desktop computer, continuing to learn new functions and programs with satisfaction instead of feeling like I am languishing behind the soft glow of a 2

-monitor set up all day. 

(i watched the old movie “sleepless in seattle” recently  and the scene where the two kids book a flight on a 200lb, 2-color computer is a good reference point for this) 

it means listening to the people around me with a kind of awe for the little universe they represent, regardless of if they have some sort of credential that i personally think is valuable. 

then it means reclaiming the little rituals like hot tea and emptying my purse at night. 

and it means taking time daily to do the things that pull me back to the physical world- running and stretching, being cold, riding a bike, surfing and skating and snowboarding, or keeping focus on a tennis court. 

EUROPA

“Because the faster you can get from place to place, the more you have conquered the limitations of time and space, the more everywhere is the same place. So the differences between different cultures, the differences between people, the things that we want to see when we go to foreign places are increasingly unavailable” - ALAN WATTS

——

There are two words I learned in college that I think about all the time - “liminal space” and “hinterlands”.

I just realized they mean very similar things, not so far from “places to run to”. They are defined as follows:

Definition of liminal

1: of, relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold : barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response liminal visual stimuli

2: of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : IN-BETWEEN, TRANSITIONAL

Definition of hinterland

1: a region lying inland from a coast

2a: a region remote from urban areas

b: a region lying beyond major metropolitan or cultural centers

Examples of hinterland in a Sentence

the colonies hugged the coastline, while the hinterland remained largely unexplored

And when I look to describe my whereabouts, during the break I’ve taken from this website, and the twilight-y days between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, these two oddly specific words come to mind.

They also kind of sound like NETHERLANDS, which is one of the new places I saw during this time..

But how do I even describe an exploration of Europe over 10 days, 5 planes, 7 trains, 2 buses, cars, endless sprints, and ski lifts? Maybe Alan Watts is right, the pace of modern life is all a bit insane.

But for all the tiny peculiarities I missed by traveling this way, I feel like in my head I have more of of this great big blur called Europe.

In 2019, I spent a good chunk of time getting to know her, even more if you count the hours on bus system of greater Rio de Janeiro listening to Diplo’s EP titled, “Europa”.

I learned about how freely Europeans bop around- German-speaking Swiss heading to Italy on a Sunday to grocery shop and lunch on the cheap. Ryan Air and Wiz Air, Eurorail, Paris Beauvais and Venice Treviso. Portuguese flags in little Swiss towns, doce uvas in Antwerp

I learned about America. And I love the essay the quote at the beginning is taken from, because it explains so many little things. About taking pride in old sweaters, and time to arrange blueberries on a plate. About 2 weeks of vacation and Soylent and peanut butter. Liberal arts colleges and dusty stuffed dalmatians.

How the Atlantic ocean and the Alps still matter…

https://www.organism.earth/library/document/true-materialist-society ** quote taken from “A True Materialist Society” essay by Alan Watts

ocean friendly

“people put limits on their creativity by believing they have to rely on what they know and what they have done” - bertrand piccard

This was going to be a blog about thanksgiving, but since all I had written was this quote, and today is a new day, I’ll write about this quote and how it relates to today!

I haven’t done too much yet, except drink a coffee and throw elbows on the train to grab my holographic new monthly pass - yellow for December - the conductor moves on and I can type again in peace.

But today with the whiff of the coffee grounds, was something else - a bit of positive change! After some time of living a trashy existence in NYC - comp’d take out everyday, squishy plastic poland spring bottles, a bit of fast fashion here and there (but mostly around Union Square) and takeaway coffees upon takeaway coffees- I’m finding my own way!

“No lid?” My friend behind the juice bar presupposes today, and I’m happy.

I don’t want to look up statistics on single use plastics, but there’s nothing grosser than the overflowing trash bins on the platforms at Grand Central on a Tuesday or in SoHo on the weekends. All plastic cups with name and drink order stickers, mine probably among them. I tell myself that commercial fishing is responsible for most of the ocean’s plastics and continue to the next window of a drive-thru Starbucks in Connecticut. I tell myself that iCloud is a series of cables under the ocean. Basically I think about all the big things that my little indulgences aren’t going to make or break. Yet the sight of these overflowing trash bins still troubles me, and I hate so much piling on another plastic cup coated in pulp and juice residue. Evidence that I care about my own body but less for the earth that it came from…

But in the past few months, I realized something wonderful.

Just by using my voice to speak up I can do better! By bringing some of the diverse experiences and habits I’ve learned about into my (formerly) “trashy” NYC style, I can make a new way.

It started with lunch. It seems funny that this is one of my efforts to save the planet, because it’s something so fun, but everyday, instead of paying for the same salad to take away in a plastic bowl, in a bag, I sit at the bar of the excellent TARTINERY by myself and eat in a reusable bowl, or what one might just call “a bowl”. It can be just a 20-minute ordeal, but it’s so much more enjoyable! I chat with the staff. They’re wonderful! And at the end of my meal, instead of a sad smelly pile of plastic in the trash bin by my desk, I give a little salute to my new friends and go on my way.

After a few months of this, I started thinking about the morning coffee cups. I mean, I know it would be very easy to come at me at this point, to point out the true ecological thing would be to grind your own coffee, pour it into a reusable thermos, and pack your lunch. But buying reusable containers just adds more stuff to my world, and I guess for various reasons, the traditional “zero-waste blog” rules just haven’t worked for me. But I am determined to do better! And one renewable resource I can draw upon is my cat-like reflexes! So I order my to-go coffees without a lid!

In Europe, people might probably drink their whole morning coffee relaxed and sitting at a table.  The trick ordering to-go coffee without a lid draws on this - you have to enjoy the first few sips sitting down or standing still to get the liquid level down to where it can splash around a tiny bit without spilling over. Then you can start walking, just pay attention! Okay, and it’s true, if you use a rent the runway subscription your clothes are insured for accidents. But so far so good. And if you’re going to pay for customized coffee drinks, did you know you can even ask them to put your ice coffee in a paper cup without a lid or straw?

I know it’s a compromise, somewhere between being a zero waste angel and dead-eyed, caffeine-guzzling consumer, but I feel it’s real and real easy way to reduce single use plastics everyday. 

So in the words of a million Tik Tok captions, can we make this trend?

UPDATE: Since the time of writing, I have reached out to the Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Restaurants Program to partner for more opportunities to ‘change the way we live + change the way eat’ (2pac) stay tuned!!

art / surf / run

“…face it with no agenda, only appreciation”

You can live by your agenda book, or you can live life flying by the seat of your pants, so to speak, but for me, the key is strike the perfect balance. 

In the spirit of marathon planning, I worked my whole calendar this week. I wanted to see all my good intentions in one place, and if it would be physically possible to do everything in 72 hours, + the miles I now owe myself. So I mapped out the details. I started using the Train Time app. I kept super busy. It was a bit different for me, I’m not necessarily the planning type, I love to be lucky. I intentionally don’t plan things sometimes to leave plenty of room for magic things to happen. And they do! So much! But I have noticed since kind of getting back into a routine, that this attitude can leave me out of sync with the world I live in. The trains do run on a schedule, I work on a schedule, my friends keep various semblance of a  schedule, and if I reject the concept wholesale I must deal with the consequences. 

The main consequence of not having any plan at all is the feeling that I am out of sync with the rest of the world on a weekend. Which is pretty usual for me, maybe also because I have zero chill and unlimited energy for having fun. My favorite weekend of all of college is always remembered as the “horse show/ halloween/ half marathon” weekend, as an adult, New York to Barcelona in 72 hours is up there. Both of these definitely involved a level of planning, but also bit of “je ne sais quoi”, despite being laid out plans, they certainly were left a lot of room for things to go wrong and for magic to happen. So, this weekend, I think I made the same type of plans in miniature - a schedule of the things I want to do, except the things I want to do are run, and look art and surf…

I feel like there was an immediate benefit. Something about Fridays always makes me sad, but making a calendar for the weekend I realized that I do have a lot of things to be excited for, even if it wasn’t headed to JFK! I honored my little Friday ritual of nail-painting and Soho, even if it was a little less spontaneous than the week before. I had plans for the next morning, I had plans for the next afternoon. Friday on my training schedule is a rest day, Saturday is a 5-mile run, Sunday is 8 miles, and Monday is cross-training. But since my plan is stretched out 6 weeks, I have room to mess this all up. So I opted to do the last snake run of the year. Snake Run is an amazing project where you meet up to run with a group that rushes the streets of Chelsea and stops at 5-6 different art galleries and installations. Every single one smelled like Le Labo Santal 33 and I know it wasn’t us, a group where my running app interrupting a docent’s explanation of the first post-minimalist to work in neon was met with more knowing smiles than condescension… 

And it was good for my imagination to take everything in! Honestly, sometimes, the art I see in galleries feels just as inaccessible as any other new endeavor- reading a book in French or trying to learn a new computer program. I feel my brain straining to make connections that just aren’t there yet. But at the same time, it feels completely validating, to see the effort and elevation that goes into an exhibit. The massive canvases, the texts, the perfect gallery walls, all there on the strength of an artist, one person, who had something to say. 

I also connected a lot with a little anecdote about Keith Sonnier at the Kasmin gallery. He titles one series “Ba-o-Ba” after a patois name of a fishing boat he encountered in New Orleans. The word means something like “light bath”, how the fisherman would describe being on the boat at night when the moonlight is reflected on the water. 

I guess because I was surfing the next day, surrounded by the sparse light of the winter sky as it reflected off the water (something I really appreciate when I’m not catching a lot of waves with my weakling arms clad in 5mm), I loved this anecdote. And I’m also pretty into my own collection of little phrases and ideas I find, on the side of boats and the unexpectedly poetic words of strangers, a kind of art I connect with just as much as anything I find in a gallery, so it was pretty cool to learn those moments are as special as I hold them to be - the origin story of real art!

——

If you’re reading this please consider donating to my london marathon fundraiser for VICTA UK ❤️

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/SaraMorano

& all I want to do is run

marathon training plan + first playlist 

So as nervous as it makes me to blog the (my) process of training for a marathon, let’s go!

I think when most people think of marathon training they think of strict regimes - a special diet, a grueling schedule, stopwatches, matching socks, foam rollers, yoga class - and yes, it is all those things, as well as a weird force that takes even a spontaneous kind of life like mine and makes it into all those things.

But the reason I’m nervous to blog about training for a marathon, is the other side of it. Because I feel like all that strict planning is designed to counteract the true nature of the beast-contingency. All the careful routines get you to the very edge of what you can control, then you are at the mercy of your body to perform throughout training and in the race. There are so many things that could possibly derail you. I don’t take for granted for a second that everything will go cool! 

Anyway, I’m also super excited to start training again, because it’s always been a really happy time for me. For better or worse, instead of completely focusing on running during a training cycle, I like to just pile on training to whatever else I want to do. So there are almost year-long stretches of my life where I did everything - surfing, brunches, charity galas, weddings, work, (travel!!) - with a latent long run adrenaline high. And um, also while still wearing running shorts. It makes everything is more fun! I’m excited for that!

But how to start…

I kind of believe if you want to do anything, sometimes you just have to take the most basic good advice and put it into practice. Literally, like wikiHow advice works, you just have to do it. And I’ve done this before!

So my training plan is a mileage schedule I chose in 5 minutes off Hal Higdon . com, printed off, and stuck into my calendar. My idea was to start as soon as possible, so even though it’s a 16-week plan, I’m stretching it out 6 more weeks so I can start now. Marathon training plans generally assume you are already running regularly. 

My first run was Tuesday (3 miles), then Wednesday (5 miles). I owe myself 3 more miles today (update: completed!) and a good stretch. The weekend calls for some long runs, which, I haven’t decided if I will skip in the warm up phase. 8-10 miles seems like a big bite right now, we will see.

But for now, I have noticed how even just scheduling daily runs has reorganized my time. I usually have a fluid sense of time in the mornings when it’s just about showering, coffee, and dashing to the train- if I press the snooze button now, I can make up for it somehow. But when I know how many miles I need to eek out at dawn, time becomes iron law. I know I’m not going to do 5 miles at a 6-minute mile pace- so I need to wake up nowww! There are no corners to be cut. I can’t go out in this weather without running tights, so I need to do my laundry- today! And I NEED fresh music sooo I can’t waste time downloading a good song I hear and adding it to the playlist, titles, included below (with the most running-est parts of the songs quoted) 

high and low - empire of the sun

“now we are running in a pack to the place you don’t know”

love it if we made it - the 1975

“rest in peace lil peep, the poetry is in the streets”

she moves in her own way - the kooks

“uh, oh, I love her because she moves in her way”

human - the killers

“close your eyes, clear your heart, cut the cord”

lean on - major lazer

“stand up like a solider baby, yeah, I know you’re built like that”

melt my heart to stone - adele

“right under my feet is air made of bricks that pulls me down and turns me weak”

nothing that has happened so far has been anything we can control - tame impala

“it sucks to keep on running”

&run- sir sly

“well I don’t know what I don’t know so I’ll kick off my shoes and run”

prom dress - mxmtoon

“all I wanna do is run”

DONATE TO MY LONDON MARATHON PAGE TO RAISE 1,500 POUNDS FOR VICTA UK BEFORE MARATHON DAY

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BLEAKER STREET

“That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two…” -

(THE LITTLE PRINCE)

Honestly, it could have been Prince Street, but for the sake of an easy pun based on BLEECKER St., I’ve chosen to title this downtown vignette otherwise.

Sometimes, I too, feel like at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter, or poet, and it is these times I take great care to pick a precise shade to paint my nails in a little salon downtown, exactly above Melvin’s Juice Bar, buzz "tenoverten” to get up. I went with Chanel “Sargasso” a dark shade some might call black, but it’s really a sort of green, named for the Sargasso Sea, according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -

The Sargasso Sea (/sɑːrˈɡæsoʊ/) is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre.[1] Unlike all other regions called seas, it has no land boundaries.[2][3][4] It is distinguished from other parts of the Atlantic Ocean by its characteristic brown Sargassum seaweed and often calm blue water.[1] …All of the currents deposit the marine plants and refuse which they are carrying into this sea, yet the ocean water in the Sargasso Sea is distinctive for its deep blue color and exceptional clarity, with underwater visibility of up to 61 m (200 ft).[8] It is also a body of water that has captured the public imagination, and so is seen in a wide variety of literary and artistic works and in popular culture.[9]

The poet inside, whose words I swallow down most days until I have a stomach-ache, was momentarily satiated by this pretty name. And so was the eating, breathing, hungry thing that the green fingernails now belonged to… She walked 3 blocks into the cold before being drawn into the bright lights of a well-stocked bodega for a snack. For obvious reasons, little poet be damned, we were keeping it low-cal. So I chose a papery stack of olive oil seaweed snacks (the ones with the shoe salts inside) and was on my way. Avoiding eye contact with Friday hoards outside bars as nibbled my snack laced with cuticle oil.

“Can I get one?”

I wasn’t paying attention and apparently had been walking and snacking lock step with a couple of Max Fish- looking kids. I hesitated for a second (I had like one airpod** in) and not even because I didn't want to share my food. I had been embarrassed earlier in the week when I happily and absent-mindedly offered a half-eaten Ben and Jerry’s pint slice (so good by the way) to the concierge at the Greenwich Hyatt.

“You’re not like a germaphobe, right, go on!'“

“Oh, I totally would but there are cameras everywhere”

Greenwich, right? I can’t remember exactly who on the train dryly commented on an unsolved murder case in neighboring New Canaan, that it wouldn’t have been possible in Greenwich because of the cameras everywhere…

I ate the rest of the pint slice even though I was full. This was Tuesday night. I still had some lingering embarrassment from this interaction, but I wasn’t in Greenwich now, I was in the Village. The immortal words of Marsha P. Johnson come to mind- “You’re in the village, be free! live!”.

“Yeah for sure!”

I said what I wanted to.

The Shaun-Johnson looking guy and his beanie-clad guy dug right into my seaweed snacks. I suppressed imagining if they had washed their hands or not. Meeting people this way, as a coldly sober loner minding your own business on the way to the subway station, is exactly like meeting horses, which you do by lightly blowing air into their big old nostrils. It’s a little weird and not very dialogue heavy. The less you say the better, you’re only there to observe the situation and tell the truth.

“What are you doing”

“I just got my nails done!”

“They’re kind of the color of seaweed..”

And then at least I had something to do on Friday night, jam into a booth at a sushi place and show my blog to these kids with Basquiat hair, comic impressions to spare, and enough heart to identify as painters and writers past the tender age of six…

And I felt for a second like like maybe I didn’t have to get this dumb literary inspired tattoo I was contemplating to find people to talk to about boa constrictors, primeval forests and stars.

A simple polish change and brisk walk with at least one airpod out will do.

** A bit of fiction hear, I lost my AirPods 2 weeks ago so have been using the wire ones. But “AirPod” is kind of cool sounding and as result “Ear Buds” (which always kind of sounded like a potato/staph infection to me anyway) sounds even worse, so I’m just using this word to describe the one of the two little speakers you shove in your ears in cities, even if its not technically correct